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Still, she could not go back in time and undo what had already been done. She could only deal with the events before her.
“Lysias. This no longer feels right.”
“It isn’t aboutrightor how anyonefeels. It is what’s to be done.”
She stared at him, wondering if she could get through to him. The pieces of him she’d fallen in love with. Was it love if you couldn’t agree with the destruction a person was choosing? Knowing that the destruction wasn’t even what he had planned for Diamandis.
It was what enacting his revenge would do to Lysias. He thought his problems, his nightmares, hispainwould be cured once he hurt Diamandis. He truly believed that.
And she did not know how to combat that belief. She had no great understanding or experience that could prove to him he was wrong. She only had what he was so desperately afraid of. She only had the one thing that wouldactuallysee him through.
“Lysias, I love you.”
There was a beat. A flare in his eyes. But he did not move. He tensed until he seemed to be nothing but a statue. But the statue spoke. So cold. Solost.“Love me?” He laughed bitterly. “You know nothing about me. Or love.”
“I know you have saved me when you didn’t have to. You have protected me. You don’t think I’ve seen the Athenian papers? I know that Vasilis Pangali was finally jailed after ordering that attack on me. And I know you were involved, as I have found so much evidence on that man, and he had never faced any permanent consequence until you saw to it.”
“This is irrelevant.”
“It isn’t. It speaks to who you are and how you care. Underneath the revenge you’ve sought for so long, you’ve forgotten why you started on this cursed road to begin with. You are a man who seeks to right wrongs. And that is one of the reasons I love you.”
“Alexandra. You will be quiet. You will open that door and we will attend this ball. Tomorrow, I will have my revenge. You will be paid. And then we will part ways. Love has nothing to do with this, and we needn’t speak on it any longer.”
She wanted to laugh that he thought he could simply order love away or that not speaking on it would change anything. “Ineed to speak on it. I also love you because I understand—along with the luck of the draw—how hard you have worked to become who you are. I know because I did it too. I understand you, Lysias, as few ever will.”
“You are full of fairy tales, Al.”
And she didn’t misunderstand that he’d called her Al for the first time in days on purpose. To create distance. To make her feel like she was only that tool he’d originally sought. But she wasn’t Al any longer.Shehad been changed. By what he’d done. By who he was.
“I love you,Lysias, because Iknowthat beneath the pain you have turned into your armor, there is a man who only wants to belong again. Love again.”
“Enough!” he shouted. Loud enough and angrily enough that she did indeed stop.
He stepped forward her, jabbing his finger out as though he meant to poke her in the chest—though he never got close enough to do so.
“You know all these things, but do you know that I had those tests run?” he demanded, a whirlwind of fury and wildness. “The ones you wanted. To try to match you with a family? Did you know that it’s true?”
True. The word echoed inside her, a bomb detonating, because he could only mean...
Lysias took her by the shoulders because he needed to touch her. Needed to find his anchor so that he couldfighther. So he could make her understand that there was nothing about him she could ever love. There was no good in him. Everything in him had died that day twenty years ago, except revenge.
He was made of revenge and revenge only.
“Do you know that it’salltrue?” he said, giving her a small, gentle shake as if it would make the words penetrate. As if he could shakesenseinto her. “You are Princess Zandra, and I have been keeping it from you. And planned to. Forever.”
Her eyes were big as she stared up at him. He wanted to see them morph. From all that damn love to confusion, to understanding. To hate.
She should hate him. He wanted her to hate him.
“You...ran the test,” she said, but only sounded awed. Only looked up at him as if she’d never doubted him when he was giving her every reason to doubt. To understand. “And you don’t see that this was a kindness? Taking care of me. Caringforme.”
“Are you hearing me? YouareZandra.I knewand did not tell you.”
“When did you find out the results, Lysias?”
He wanted to lie and tell her ages ago, because he knew somehow that she would turn this on him. But he didn’t know how to make the lie come out, when he’d never once struggled to lie to get what he wanted. He dropped her shoulders, stepped back. His hands were shaking and this was inexcusable. She was inexcusable.
“When, Lysias?” she demanded.
